Londoners march in support of Ukraine to mark three years of war

PARIS: A French convict, on the run since being freed last May in an ambush that left two prison officers dead, has been arrested in Romania, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said Saturday.
Mohamed Amra, accused of being a major drugs gangland figure, had vanished without a trace after an attack with military-grade assault weapons on a prison van carrying him in the northwestern Normandy region.
Three officers were wounded in the attack that was caught on CCTV and shocked France because of its extraordinary violence.
France tasked more than 300 investigators with finding Amra, and requested an Interpol red notice hoping for foreign assistance.
Amra, reportedly known as “La Mouche” (The Fly), has a long history of convictions for violent crimes that started when he was only 15.
He was also suspected of ordering hits while in prison.
At the time of his escape, Amra was facing two fresh charges, one for attempted murder and another for participation in a gangland killing in the southern city of Marseille on the French Riviera, a hub for drug trafficking and gang violence.
But despite the government labelling him “public enemy number one,” and the deployment of massive means, Amra was not captured as quickly as the authorities had hoped.
On Saturday, the government reacted with relief that the chase was over.
“After a manhunt lasting several months, Amra has been arrested, finally!” Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said on X.
President Emmanuel Macron hailed Amra’s capture as “a formidable success.”

BAMAKO: Mali’s army said it’s investigating soldiers who were accused by separatist Tuareg rebels of killing at least 24 civilians earlier this week, in a rare probe of human rights abuses since the military took power in 2020.
The Front for the Liberation of Azawad, the Tuareg independence movement in the north of the country, accused soldiers and Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group of intercepting two civilian transport vehicles bound for Algeria from Gao on Monday, and “coldly executing” at least 24 people among the passengers.
The general staff of the Malian armed forces, without referring to the killings, on Wednesday denounced “intoxicating campaigns” against the army. On Friday, the authorities announced the opening of an investigation into the civilian deaths.
Analysts say it’s unlikely the investigation would fault the troops or the Russian mercenaries.
“The objective of the investigations is going to be more about countering the allegations against (the army) and Wagner, rather than trying to find any wrongdoing by the latter. The conclusion of the investigation is likely to say that those allegations are false,” said Rida Lyammouri, senior fellow at Policy Center for the New South, a Moroccan think tank.
Mali has been in a crisis for more than a decade. In 2020, a military group, riding on popular discontent over attacks by armed militant groups, seized power in a coup that toppled the democratically elected president.